The Yogic Path

I am a yogi myself and therefore this is a topic that warms my heart and makes me happy, but it doesn’t mean that one can just do that oneself. It takes several factors, takes several so-called accumulations in one’s mind before this path is really approachable, before one can use it. You probably know people who are very good at telling you how empty everything is, and how nothing has any special meaning, and so on. Then you push them one day when they are in a bad mood and they blow their tops and you say, “Hey what happened to your emptiness?” There are a lot of people who have excellent mouth dharma—who are very good at explaining things—but they don’t have such good totality dharma. I mean they are not very good at living the different things. Actually, even though what interests me the most is the lay and yogic way of living, there are certain steps in the development of that path. There are certain things on the way which are a kind of foundation, and which we should try to really hold onto and build on.

It is completely certain that nobody in this world can do anything very powerful or meaningful from a neurotic state of mind. A neurotic state of mind is characterized by crisscrossed energies, all kinds of doubts and confusions, and a feeling of separation between the doer, the thing done and the act of doing. Actions like that may produce a lot of noise, they may consume a lot of energy, but don’t bring a lot of benefit. Such actions usually don’t do so much for others. Here on the first level of practice, it’s really important to get into situations that will not eat up our energy, that will not feed us a lot of paranoia and confusion and unpleasant experiences, but will give us a steady basis for growth and development. This is the part where the yogi and the monk share something, because this is where one has to deal with cause and effect, with the things that we do, think, and say, and the results that they put into our lives.

If our lives are full of problems, if we are constantly hav­ing difficulties with beings, situations, and laws, then there will be no deep growth. There can be no really powerful settling of the essence of the mind, and it will be very dif­ficult for us to truly develop. So, for that reason, the buddhas advise us to begin by examining cause and effect. We must begin by seeing what is useful in this world, and what is harmful, and then try to do what is useful. The buddhas tell us about this in a very unsentimental way that makes us sometimes look a bit right and left, and say, “Aren’t I more important than that? Aren’t things more important than that?” The Buddha’s teachings actually tell us that we should think of our faculties of body, speech and mind as tools, as something that we have in order to get certain results both for others and ourselves. The Buddha tells us for instance to consider our body a tool for protecting other beings, for giving them security, for giving them a feeling of being at home, of not having to be neurotic or have a lot of fear. Buddha will also tell us to think of our bodies as an agent for being generous with others. At the time of the Buddha, being generous meant giving money or things. In the socially developed part of the world today, it’s not so much about money, it’s more a question of sharing our security, our good feeling, our joy, our warmth, and whatever we have that other people don’t have. It is very important, the Buddha said, to use our bodies as an instrument for giving love and happiness and a warm rich feeling. If we do that, we can be totally sure that we are feeding the space inside and outside with impressions that will give us a lot of happiness. We can be totally sure that whatever will come out of that will calm our minds, will make our minds like a cup of coffee that isn’t agitated anymore, and will manifest clarity and radiance. We will become like a jewel that shines, and that, through being polished, will vibrate with its own radiance and light. In this way, the Buddha shows us that using this body is a meaningful thing which has lasting results, which will benefit others and ourselves, not just now, but at all times and places.

Of course, we aren’t just bodies. In free countries, what the government wants us for is mainly focused on the body. The law concentrates on mainly the things that we do. How­ever, in our private lives, what we say is often more important than what we do. The results of what we say are often more essential, and more powerful than the result of what we do. The reason for this is our body will just touch one or maybe a few beings, but the things we say can really ruin people’s lives—or at least run them out of the town they are in now. On the other hand, if we help beings understand each other and develop some kind of compassion and good feeling, then we can make their lives exceedingly rich and meaningful. The things we say, the things that come out through our voice; the warmth, the understanding, the love, the clarity, the fearlessness that we produce in beings through the things we say is actually a wonderful, marvelous, a very, very good thing. Our speech can touch many beings—it can be really important. Look at our heads of state, look at how important it is what they say. They all have to do more or less the same things, but look at the difference in what they say. And it is like that, words have a charge, words have a certain energy, they are like hooks coming out to capture the rings of our imagination. They touch us and develop us, so using speech in the right way is essential and important.

In addition to body and speech is the fact that whatever we do with our mind will influence everything. What we think today, we will say tomorrow, and do the day after. So, if we can, we develop in ourselves a feeling-tone where we are just generally happy when people do something intelligent and meaningful. We develop a kind of inner state of mind where we just naturally wish everybody everything good. We can try to think clearly and not confuse ourselves by putting a lot of information in the wrong places. If we can just clearly see what is happen­ing, then our minds will only bring happiness, they will only produce some­thing beneficial, and body and speech will do exactly as they should. This is the level a yogi needs.

So, this first thing is important. Cause and effect, working with body, speech and mind is very important. Not having any holes or chinks in our armour is really important. If we try to get up and really do a big thing and we are not safe, our basis is not right, we will not be very good yogis. We may make some won­derful statements and every­body will clap their hands, but then the next day we sit there with problems, and nobody likes us, and every­thing is gone again. We will be like people building a house on ice and everything is nice until spring comes. Similarly, building our house on sand and everything is nice until the first flood comes, and then it’s over again. Basically, all of us have to be aware of what is going on, we have to be aware of cause and effect in our lives.

Strangely enough, even though just about everything has changed since the time of the Buddha, we can actually use the advice that he gave. We can make some things a little bit more tight, and we have to loosen a few other things that he said, but generally we can use the advice that he gives. For instance the advice that Buddha gave on not killing any­body—at the time he meant killing human beings, because everybody was a farmer. Everybody had a few chickens and they sometimes wound up on the table instead of outside in the yard, and so he couldn’t say, “Don’t kill living beings.”

This would have been harmful because everybody did it anyway, so they said not to kill human beings. But today we live in big countries, in big towns and communities and we don’t need to go out and shorten a chicken by the length of his head, we don’t have to do all those things. We can actually strengthen that vow and say that we will not kill any larger living beings, I mean we can really strengthen that activity. On the other hand, for something like stealing, at the time of the Buddha, it was really serious because society was under-productive and people could easily die from hunger if something was lacking—but today we pay so much tax and so many things are actually belonging more or less to everybody, that the feeling of mine and yours has been dissolved a bit and taking things as squarely as at the time of the Buddha is more difficult. We can generally follow the advice of what is useful to do with body, speech and mind, we can follow it as well as we can, and we will see that it gives us an unshakeable basis.

We always think that it is the outer world that is doing a lot of things to us. We usually think that the country is very good or bad, or the people are very good or bad, or my neighbor is like this or like that, but actually if you look at the country or the people or neighbor, you can see that they can be seen from many different sides—some will like them and some will detest them. What is the cause for liking and disliking things? It is the projections which come up from our own mind. If we have a mind full of disturbing and unpleasant experiences, if we have allowed many of those impressions to accu­mulate in our mind, then they will put up an unpleas­ant dark filter and we will see things in a way that we don’t like. On the other hand, if we have put all kinds of rosy and wonderful experi­ences into the mind, then we will see the world through that and everything will be meaningful and lovely and interesting. So, generally we make our own lives.

We make our own lives, I mean we ourselves decide what goes on, so for that reason being aware of what we do with body, speech and mind is very meaningful. It’s something every one of us should try to do, it’s something that is the basis for everything else.

So, the yogic path starts with this, it starts with cause and effect. It starts with leaving no holes in our armor, no weak points, no soft links in the chain, nothing that can be broken, no weak places from where we can be attacked. It means getting our house in order and being aware of that, being well-off ourselves, not being too confused, or in too much pain because too many troubles come up.

What can we do for others? And what is the meaning of all things? These two questions have to do with compassion on the one side, and wisdom and deep understanding on the other side. These are the next things to complete on the yogic path. In Buddhism, there are some very interesting ways of developing compassion and wisdom, and we should take these to a place where they are automatic. In the reli­gions we know about here in the West, like Christianity and Islam and so on, we hear that virtue is something very difficult, it’s something you can’t hold onto, it’s something you should fight for and so on, but in Buddhism it is completely the opposite. Virtue is natural. When your mind functions well, you can’t help but be virtuous. When you stop being neurotic and pained inside, it’s completely natural to do good things and it’s completely meaningless to do negative things. So the way that our mind works and develops is through these two different aspects growing.

The next thing then is developing this compassion and wis­dom. And why is compassion important? It is important for the single reason that even if we do the smartest, most intelligent, most thoroughly speculative and smart thing, if we just do it for ourselves, then it stays small. If the basis of the things we are doing is just one being, or very few beings, then whatever we do, no matter how intelligent, it’s not very impressive, not very big. While on the other hand, if we do things with the thought of benefiting others, then even if what we do is half clumsy and half crummy and all a bit con­fused, then just the fact that all beings, countless beings are involved, the fact that all their wishes for happiness are being activated, the fact that we are swinging with their stream of consciousness, this makes everything very, very meaningful and powerful. So, it’s really important, this first thing, that we begin with the idea of compassion.

There are three kinds of compassion here that we talk about. There’s the kind of compassion which comes in glimpses, like it appears in a few moments when we don’t feel attacked, where we don’t feel in trouble, where we for-get to hope or fear or expect anything, then suddenly a kind of warmth may come in. I grew up in Northern Europe, which has quite a similar idea of manhood to your society’s idea of it, you know that stiff upper lip and keep control and things like that. I remember when I started getting spells of com­passion for people when they had trouble, at first I felt really funny, I felt really squashed out and strange. It really felt funny. But then afterwards I saw that actually it didn’t stop my activity, it didn’t make me softer when I had to act, it actu-ally didn’t make me a sissy, and I became capable of handling it a bit better when these warm moments of real compassion came up. When these first moments of warmth and open­ness come, one may not really know what to do with them. (Women have an easier time of it than men usually.) When these moments come up then the thing is to go into a state where one becomes a bit like a doctor. It becomes a kind of compassion which isn’t really even personally involved any more. Where one just thinks as a doctor that no matter what state people might be in, that one would like them to be healthy and do well in every way. It’s a state where if people are really difficult, one doesn’t say, “Oh he’s doing some­thing against me,” but one thinks, “Oh he is in trouble and he’s bringing his symptoms to me and let’s see what I can do for him.” And the way that a doctor will not get angry with his patients if they come in in small pieces and are all destroyed, but just tries to help them, in exactly the same way we should try to develop a compassion that diagnoses all kinds of strange activity, behavior, negative emotions, stiff ideas and whatever else, which diagnoses those states as suffering and the cause of suffering. They are diagnosed as different kinds of diseases, if not of the body, then of the speech and the mind. And we just try to help them as well as we can, this kind of automatic state of compassion where you don’t even feel attacked before you start thinking, “What can I do?” You don’t lead the attack with a full counterattack, you know you go to the side and hold the thing and spin it around, use its energy, do with it what you want to do. I mean this kind of reaction where it’s not head against head, but there’s a lot of space where you can do things. It is really important to develop that. It doesn’t mean that one just has to say, “Now everything is good.” If people do something negative and then you give them another few yards of rope to hang them­selves, that is not compassionate. It doesn’t mean taking someone who is really sick and saying, “Listen, here are some chalk tablets and that is good for you,” or something like that. It means operating if people need to learn, it means stop-ping them if they are about to make trouble for others and themselves, and importantly, it means that there is no anger in what we do. We do what we can for the benefit of others, whether it is pleasant or unpleasant. We will make mistakes sometimes, and then it’s people’s karma, but the fact that we cannot do things perfectly doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try. This trying to do as well as we can, this kind of compassion, is very important.

Finally, we should allow this kind of compassion, this sec­ond kind, to become a third kind which is truly absolute. It is absolute in the way that it doesn’t come from any factors happening in the mind but it comes from the mind itself. This kind of compassion comes from the realization that space is the same inside and outside, that awareness in its true nature is not different in all of us. Although the pictures in the mirror may not look the same, the radiant essence, the space-clarity of the mirror is exactly the same. Seeing how we all want happiness, how we all want to avoid suffering, how we all behave nicely if we feel good, how we are heavy if we feel bad, and how we, funnily enough—every single one of us—even though we are just one being, think, “I should have a special deal, I should get special treatment,” and all that—seeing all those things, there will be an automatic compas­sion that comes up. It is really automatic, beyond thoughts or ideas, beyond any concepts. There will be a feeling of oneness, and this feeling of oneness will bring us to do, think and say exactly that which, at the right time, will open the situation and make all kinds of healing and growth and development possible.

The perfection of compassion is when old blocks and hindrances really dissolve and go away. You probably know people who are exceedingly compassionate. Probably you know somebody who is crying all the time about all sorts of problems or going deeply into the pain and suffering of others, and they sit on their sofa or their chair all the time and they never do anything. They have the kind of compassion, which is sloppy, which is inaccurate, which is sentimental, and which is not very useful. On the other hand, there are also many kinds of wisdom which are destructive. Think of the wisdom of all those intelligent gentlemen who produced all kinds of political systems all over the world, suppressing people’s freedom, limiting their chances and directing everything from the top of the state and down. Think of wisdoms of how to control populations and how to destroy the free spirit of people and think of wisdoms of how to make weapons and stuff like that. I mean there are many kinds of wisdom and knowledge that can be totally logical and precise, but people get sick from it, they suffer from it, it doesn’t help them. For that reason, we need the two together—in the way that compassion without wisdom is sloppy and sentimental, and wisdom without compassion is bone hard, without fantasy or experience and really deadening. So, we have to bring the two together.

What kind of wisdom should we try to get? Well, I will begin by blowing your mind a little bit, because the wisdom I’m talking about is not what you are used to hearing from school. Buddha’s wisdom is not a question of putting more facts into our minds, it’s not that. Buddha’s wisdom is about taking things away from the mind. What things? Stiff ideas, preconceived concepts, all the things that stiffen and deaden the mind, all the things that narrow us down, all the things that make us think of yesterday and tomorrow, that make us hope and fear, that make us hold on or push away. The mean­ing that we want, this wisdom that tries to reach and which will really benefit us is not the wisdom of learning some more things in school or university. It’s the intuitive wisdom of being aware of what’s really there, of not looking through filters and colored glasses in any way, but nakedly being one with the thing and the situation and reacting spontaneously and effortlessly to what is there.

Mind’s nature is that of compassion and wisdom. If it is not disturbed, if it is not harmed or bothered in any way, it will naturally develop all kinds of awareness. All kinds of enlightenment will come up. Materialism, nihilism, realism, idealism and all the other -isms, are all limitations of what the mind can do and know. Buddha’s teachings take us to the point where we recognize that that which is really there—I mean really there—in a timeless, absolute, always and everywhere way, is awareness itself. Awareness, meaning the space making all things possible, and the radiant awareness of being able to know and understand. This is the awareness that Buddha shows us, very directly, and makes us realize. For this reason, the wisdom that comes on this level comes through letting the mind rest in its own nature.

As we know, that awareness is the real thing, while all the things happening in awareness appear, change and disappear again, then when we are sitting there in our open awareness space, if a materialistic thought comes up we say, “Oh materialistic thought, very practical, let me write two words down on a piece of paper so we don’t have to think of it anymore until we stop meditating.” We say, “Oh, interesting,” and we put the materialistic thought over in the box of mate­rialistic, practical things. And if a nihilistic thought comes up, we say, “Hey, what are you doing here, what happened? Is Nietzsche coming by?” and say okay, it’s nihilistic and it works in this way and that way and it’s got these and those tendencies, and it can rest over there. If idealistic thoughts come by, you say, “Hey, you feel really good, let’s keep you along for a while you know, you’re really nice.” But all the time, whatever else happens, we just sit in that awareness and watch thoughts come and go. We know that not one of them can either increase nor harm the true nature of our mind, in the same way that the pictures in the mirror do not ultimately change the mirror, and the pictures on the screen just show that the screen is there and has this radiant quality. In exactly the same way, our mind really recognizes its own limitless essence. It recognizes, in its true nature, that wisdom is its real essence. So, this is the second thing we should try to get, on our yogic path, having checked out cause and effect, having made it as effective and clear as possible, is to actually develop our inner life. Having gotten peace, the power inside begins to come out and our inner experiences become alive. The result is that these feelings will appear inside us, ever more compassion going from very personal levels of like and dislike to a level where our mind is like the sun, just shining on everybody and wishing everybody every­thing good. On the level of wisdom, from ordinary learning and understanding and intellectual comprehension of things happening in the mind and the mind’s true nature, we go to a state beyond hope and fear, attachment and aversion, where wisdom is just coming up naturally by its own power and its own essence.

If a yogi comes with a lot of trouble with cause and effect, he won’t look good. If he comes without compassion, he will be lonely. And if he comes without wisdom, he will probably make a lot of trouble for others and for himself. So, all these different things are important, they are really neces­sary. But the yogic path itself goes beyond all this, because it is working with the moment, here and now. Similar to a rocket launching into outer space, the first bits of the rocket push us out of earth’s heavy atmosphere and the last piece of the shuttle can maneuver around and do whatever it wants. That same way, when we get out of the neurosis of harmful, disturbed, painful living, when we go beyond all suffering and limited inner development of not being compassionate and wise, then we open up into new fields, and this field is the field of purity. There is nothing which is capable of devel­oping our force and our abilities more totally than if we are in a jovial secure state with an understanding of the purity and meaningfulness, and the beauty and essence of all things. This is immensely important for us, it is something that we have to really hold on to all the time and which we mustn’t let slip between our fingers.